Discusses the changes to children's services undertaken to improve the outcomes of all young children. This book shows how the overall aims are to tackle child poverty, improve child protection and the education and childcare for young children, to raise standards, and to provide greater support for parents in bringing up their children.

Offering practical advice and guidance on how to establish and maintain effective multi-agency partnership working in your setting, this book will tell you how to meet the Every Child Matters outcomes for children and young people. It clarifies the skills and knowledge required in order to form productive partnerships, and shows you how to set up and maintain good collaborative practice.

With downloadable electronic resources Offering practical advice and guidance on how to establish and maintain effective multi-agency partnership working in your setting, this book will tell you how to meet the Every Child Matters outcomes for children and young people. It clarifies the skills and knowledge required in order to form productive partnerships, and shows you how to set up and maintain good collaborative practice. The following are provided: - useful checklists; - examples of best practice in multi-agency working; - a range of activities to support team building; - reflective questions, to facilitate training and improvement; - practical tools for evaluating the impact of multi-agency working; - photocopiable materials to use with each chapter of the book. It is an invaluable resource for leaders and managers in any early years setting, Children′s Centre, primary, secondary or special school or Pupil Referral Unit, and will support anyone responsible for coordinating and managing multi-agency partnership working. Lecturers in higher education responsible for training members of the children′s workforce will value this book, as well as Local Authority officers and Workforce Remodelling Advisers.

Solve toddler challenges with eight key mindshifts that will help you parent with clarity, calmness, and self-control. In Why is My Child in Charge?, Claire Lerner shows how making critical mindshifts—seeing children’s behaviors through a new lens —empowers parents to solve their most vexing childrearing challenges. Using real life stories, Lerner unpacks the individualized process she guides parents through to settle common challenges, such as throwing tantrums in public, delaying bedtime for hours, refusing to participate in family mealtimes, and resisting potty training. Lerner then provides readers with a roadmap for how to recognize the root cause of their child’s behavior and how to create and implement an action plan tailored to the unique needs of each child and family. Why is My Child in Charge? is like having a child development specialist in your home. It shows how parents can develop proven, practical strategies that translate into adaptable, happy kids and calm, connected, in-control parents.

Although outcomes for children in care have improved in recent years, there remains a significant and widening gap between these and the outcomes for all children. The childhood and adolescence of many of the 60,000 children in care at any one time is often characterised by insecurity, ill-health and lack of fulfilment, resulting in the fact that they are over-represented in a range of vulnerable groups, including the homeless, teenage parents, young offenders and prisoners, those not in post-16 education, employment or training, and drug users. This Green Paper from the Department for Education and Skills sets out a series of proposals which seek to address this situation by reforming both the way the care system works for children and the quality of experience they receive. Proposals include: an improved placements system with the focus on expanding the number and quality of foster carers; powers for local authorities to direct schools to admit children in care, even where the school is fully subscribed; pilot schemes to allow young people to continue to live with foster carers up to the age of 21 years; introduction of a national bursary for young people in care going to university; regular Ofsted inspections of how each local authority is meeting the educational needs of children in care; better support to prevent exclusions of children in care; and enhanced entitlement to free school transport to ensure children do not have to change school when they change placement. The closing date for responses to this consultation document is 15 January 2007, either sent by email to: [email protected] or by post to: Consultation Unit, Area 1A, Castle View House, East Lane, Runcorn, Cheshire WA7 2GJ. A series of focus groups and workshops will be held throughout the consultation period to consider views on the Green Paper, and four working groups of interested stakeholders are being set up in order to explore issues in more detail (under the headings of the future of the care population, social care pratices, placement reform, and best practice in schools) which will report to the DfES in Spring 2007.

From understanding what adoption is, through to step by step guidance on the entire process and the challenges that come up along the way, this is the only book you will need to read on adoption. Written by an author who was adopted herself, who has looked after over twenty children and who works with a fostering and adoption agency that deals specifically with breakdowns, this book will teach you how to confidently navigate the system and build a strong and lasting relationship with your child. Whilst very much being the unvarnished truth, this is an empowering guide that will ensure you feel in control and know where to turn to for help no matter what: With a positive attitude and the right tools, adopting a child can be very rewarding - don't try to overthink it, don't try to love, just do right by them and as you learn about each other the love, kindness and acceptance will grow.